As I pulled into the Museum's parking lot, I noticed that I didn't even think about my wife. I was a widow of my own creation. But I felt nothing of it.
I considered all I had done. It left me with nothing but the Museum. Michael O., my childhood friend, disappeared soon after saving himself from a murdering Winery manager. Zayda was who took his place in my heart.
And my wife Ines. She was who filled my whole body. My infinitely better half.
I had no children. I'm an only child. My parents are long gone.
I still felt nothing.
Perhaps the Director can take her place. I knocked on his office door, as I had done countless times before.
He opened it in his typical, rehearsed motions. He stared at me. It was my turn to speak first.
"Ines is gone." The words slithered through my teeth.
"It must have been hard for you—" I put my fist over my heart.
"No. To protect the Museum, I must stop feeling. That is what the incident with Pathei-Mathos' folder taught me." The Director crossed his arms. It always felt like he was trying to be human. The look on his face however—told me he had stopped.
"The Hunter." My stomach reacted to his statement. It was like it jumped up to my chest and left a trail of acid as it fell back into its spot. I looked down at my palms. Were there always so few creases?
"You are forgiven for your previous rule breach. In fact, your work is commendable. Tracking and neutralizing your own wife without your emotions controlling you is unique." His voice was no longer just "off", it was now inhuman. It wasn't robotic or manufactured. It was just indescribably alien.
I think it was that change in his tone that did it. Madness crept up my back. I had killed my wife and earned praise for it.
Uniqueness had never felt so close to emptiness.
"Do you still have that badge I gave you?" I fumbled around my coat pocket and took it out. It felt heavier than normal.
"Good." The Director took his identical version of the badge and shoved it face first into the wall farthest from the door. The wall vanished in exactly the same manner the defectors that I shot did. This could only have been done by one of our objects.
"Come." I moved before I processed the word. Was it even a word?
As soon as the Director followed me, the wall reappeared as fast as it vanished. I felt an enormous weight on the back of my skull. I almost buckled.
The Director helped me up and walked me further down this bleak hallway. Eventually, a globe of wind surrounded us. I wouldn't say I felt better afterwards, but the weight had lessened.
"Your badge is protecting you." It seemed this badge felt wrong for a reason.
This hallway felt unending. I wasn't even sure if we were moving. Suddenly, a door rushed into existence. The momentum pushed me back. A crack like a whip pierced my eardrums, though only for a second.
I looked up at the Director, who wasn't even fazed. His strength was what commanded me.
The door itself looked out of place in the Museum. All of our doors were ornate and wood. This one was a metal door with a small, barred window. It looked like it wanted me dead.
"Please ignore the creature inside this room, and follow me immediately after I open the door." The Director knocked and opened it cautiously. The room beyond was completely dark. I trusted the Director and just followed him closely. A few paces in, I saw what I was to ignore. But it wasn't a creature.
It was Ines. Distorted and covered in chains that tied her to a wooden chair.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I wanted to free her. Not out of grief. More like instinct.
But the Director pulled my head towards him. His strength was immense, for someone so scrawny. He could tear my head off my neck without breaking a sweat.
He dragged me to another door, opened it, and threw me into the next room.
"Why... why is Ines there?" I stayed on my hands and knees.
"You were letting your emotions win. If you kept staring at her, you would breach a rule, and she would have snapped your neck." His tone forced my submission. He was right. I don't think I truly felt anything upon seeing her.
I lifted my body up, though I remained on my knees. I looked at the ceiling. The walls. The floor. Anywhere but right in front of me. Music began playing. It was melodic and melancholic. It reminded me of how soft Ines' voice was the last time we spoke.
The room was probably larger than the Museum and its parking lot combined. It wasn't clean or decorated like the rest of these rooms. It was concrete with stains everywhere. Stains of what?
"You have not contained Borrowed Time because you are missing something." He shoved a file into my hands. I saw the stamp. The required clearance level was far above mine.
"I won’t disappoint you again by reading this." The Director glared at me as if I just insulted him.
"Read it. This is not a game."
~~~~
Object: The Symphonic Engine
Class: Cinnani
Value: 4
Director's note: All who see this record must be neutralized. Attempts to communicate the object's appearance will be met with neutralization of the offender and everyone they know.
RULES:
1: The Symphonic Engine must be maintained continuously only by a select few.
RB-1.1: Subject 1 entered the enclosure and immediately became enraged. They attempted to damage the object with their hands, teeth, and bodily fluids. Subject 1 expired from exhaustion, blood loss, and dehydration.
RB-1.2-22: Subjects 2-22 met similar fates. No containment breach occurred.
RB-1.23: Subject 23 entered the enclosure without issue. We believe this was due to Subject 23 having no meaningful personal connections.
2: Do not describe the object’s appearance.
RB-2.1: Subject 23 viewed the object and was instructed to describe what they saw. After doing so, they fell to their knees and began repeating “NO” seventeen times, followed by “I DIDN’T DO IT” without taking breath. Subject 23 expired from asphyxiation.
Rule Writer’s note: The Director stated he remained uncertain whether Subject 23’s description was accurate.
Director’s note: The object appears to perceive itself as injured.
3: Do not respond when the object addresses you.
RB-3.1: Subject 24, who also had no meaningful personal connections, entered the enclosure without looking directly at the object. Subject 24 reported hearing the following:
Why did you hurt me?
Why did you put me here?
WHY WON'T YOU ANSWER ME?
Subject 24 began crying and repeatedly apologized to the object despite no prompt from staff. Hairline fractures appeared throughout their skeleton. Subject 24 expired shortly after.
The object's song added an instrument that played in the key of Subject 24's last words.
4: Enter containment only while angry at a person to whom you have no deep personal connection.
RB-4.1: Subject 31 entered containment while enraged at a stranger who had assaulted them the day prior.
______________________________________
WHY DID YOU HURT ME?
5: The object will score any blame to its symphony.
RB-5.1: Subject 53 had a history of blaming others for their own faults, which led to them having no meaningful personal connections. The object began speaking as follows:
SAY WHO MADE YOU DO IT.
ADMIT YOU WANTED TO HURT ME.
The object’s song entered a crescendo. Subject 53 fell to their knees and cried, screaming:
IT WAS FOR THE BETTER.
I HAD NO CHOICE.
After the final word, Subject 53’s skin turned to stone. The resulting statue shattered into pebbles. The object’s song added another instrument in Subject 53’s final tone.
6: Do not answer when the object asks whether you loved it.
RB-6.1: Subject 60 was asked to cut their thumb to draw blood. The object vacuumed all of the blood in their body, though the subject still lived. In their agony, the object requested a list of all the people the subject had harmed. The subject refused before expiry.
It is worth noting that Subject 60 was a serial killer.
7: IF YOU LOVED ME, WHY COULDN’T YOU DO THIS ONE THING FOR ME?
RB-7.1: ______________________________________
8: We said it was because of money.
9: I learned how to play every instrument. I wanted to make a song to express my guilt. It was never enough.
RB-9.1: Subject 102, diagnosed with major depressive disorder, displayed signs of possession. They turned to the Director and asked whether he felt sorry yet.
The Director said no.
Subject 102 ran toward the object and [REDACTED] into the [REDACTED] of the object.
10: Just you and your guilt are left.
~~~~
I didn't notice that I was crying.
"Hunter, the Symphonic Engine plays over a billion instruments at once. Each instrument in each key belonged to a person who blamed others for their problems, who harmed others and refused to admit it, whose anger isolated them." The Director walked further away from me. He still had his wind bubble, and I had mine.
"The badge is protecting you from the mental corrosion the song releases. You are only hearing the comprehensible parts." Knowing this was only a fraction of the Symphonic Engine’s song was horrifying enough. I could feel it cracking my skull and widening fissures in my brain.
"You have no personal connections. You had anger. You contemplated having guilt, but refused to." I almost gasped. He was right.
"There are only 3 Cinnani-class objects. Each one is capable of ending all life. Each one is the vector for prosperity. The only cost? Lives. Emotions. Experiences." The horror.
"To withstand the Ani objects, you must let go of these things. Throw me your badge." His words circled around me. My eyes were plagued by his note: Are you content, Michael? Who was Michael? I didn't care. I had only the Director left.
I threw him my badge, and the wind faded.
The bow of a violin stabbed through my gut. The pain resonated through my bones. A cacophony of sounds we were never meant to hear assaulted each nerve.
The final wails of everyone I had harmed for the Museum. To protect the Museum's secrets. To stop defectors from giving panic a weapon.
Rule 10. Just me and my guilt were left.
The wind returned. I looked at my gut—no damage. My body listened to me without delay. I felt fine.
The Director handed me my badge back. He guided me back to his office.
I wasn't paying attention.
I sat in the chair across from the Director’s desk. I understood what mattered now. The true power of these objects, and why I had to take Borrowed Time now.
"Go to your department. They were told to hold information until the Hunter returned."
I walked. I wanted to say I dragged my feet, or I sulked or slumped as I walked. But I didn't. I was neutral. I felt neutral.
"The Hunter needs to see this. Why won't the Director let us call him?" One of my employees was anxiously venting to another.
"Calm down, we can't understand his intentions." I approached the pair.
"H-Hunter! We have a lock on Borrowed Time." The anxious employee handed me a file. I didn't look at the clearance level.
It was back to where it first tormented me. Foxglove Ridge.
"How many casualties has the object inflicted?" I spoke with a tone I had never used before. I once would've thought it sounded off, but then it seemed the most natural.
"Since your encounter with it in Foxglove Ridge, over 1,000. It doesn't seem to have a pattern. We've known other breached Ani-class objects to write names or draw pictures in death, but Borrowed Time just kills." I sighed. The employees would never understand.
"It is extending its existence. It feeds on experience. It is harvesting the highest-value targets available." I threw the file on my desk.
Objects can fear. Borrowed Time feared age enough to kill many.
I would make it fear more.
~~~
I arrived at the exact location I saw the Rule Writer and others turn to ash. I slipped on the oxygen mask.
I had expected to feel a trace of trauma. A scent of death. Ash in my mouth. I felt no such things.
Then, suddenly, a dread rose up from my feet. My instincts were suppressed. I had to breathe, blink, swallow—all conscious. I became acutely aware of each nerve ending in my skin. Each hair follicle was being pulled by an unnatural force.
All towards the woman holding the object.
Her skin was jaundiced. She drooled a cloudy, milky liquid. Her eyes looked like the void between stars. An emptiness so vast it made meaning itself feel false.
She turned to ash. Squirrels in the trees turned to ash.
The wind carried the flakes like pollen. It spread around the area and stuck to the wet surfaces. My mask had become caked in ash.
"You are an object confined by rules. Not the antagonist of a story." The object locked its appearance. The asymmetric man, whose presence made the ground shrink in fear. Ash circled him like a halo.
And? What if I am not an antagonist?
The voice was born in the center of my skull. It flowed through my hippocampus as if the memory of these words was already there—long before I first heard them.
"You have killed thousands."
You have killed hundreds.
"The blame is mine. The reasoning was just. In the end, I do not care anymore. You kill with no reason. Because you are an object." There was no psychological pressure I felt from the object's presence. Nothing like before.
It clicked. The Symphonic Engine had left me with only my new title: the Hunter. I supposedly had a name. Nobody used it—even me.
Something has changed. I wanted this damn thing out.
It rushed me. The visions of the hell this object trapped me in flashed in front of me. I did not care. I pulled my gun, Saladin's Roar. Its energy, which had once destabilized me, was now nothing. I aimed.
The demon's appearance shifted to Ines'. I shot without hesitation.
The object was transported to Hilltop Museum by my bullet.
As will many defectors.